Clear Message

[Morkel Erasmus]

Here's another from our recent trip to the hot-as-heck mid-heatwave Kalahari.
One afternoon we spent time with a pride of lions at the 13th borehole waterhole. There were 2 small cubs in attendance, being very playful (more pics of that later), yet this young male was also being playful with the cubs, much to the mother's chagrin. Here she is sending a clear message to leave her cubs the frick alone!

I left space when composing in-camera for him to jump into, but he didn't move as much to the left as anticipated. Was never gonna get both fully in at the distance they were.

Techs:
Nikon D4s
Nikkor 400mm f2.8G VR
f8.0 | 1/1600 SS | ISO-2000
90% of original image, cropped for composition from top, left and bottom, with a slight rotation
Looking at it now, still not happy with the leveling - might go for a hint more CW rotation, WDYT?

[keith mitchell]

Morkel it's a shame that you could not get both animals in but good that you explained why, it's great raw aggression you have caught, think all that heat gives you plenty of dust which adds to the image giving movement. Must be great to see and capture action like this.

Keith.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Morkel - Great action and love that you can see all the muscles defined, adds to the tension. Unfortunately I do think you needed to shift to the right or crop in closer. I feel like the way the lioness on the right is cut is awkward. We've all been there in the field where we anticipate one thing and something else happens. Leveling looks ok to me.

TFS,
Rachel

[haseeb badar]

Hi Morkel -- Raw aggression from the female , those muscles look superb . Yes that cut on the right is a bit unfortunate and this happens to me a lot but the light and soft colours makes this a lovely image for me . Levelling looks ok to me also and I can also see porcupine darts under the male's belly region , might be making him a bit uncomfortable .

TFS !

[Karl Egressy]

Excellent action shot, Morkel. Very dramatic.

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Morkel,

level looks good to me as well. I have to agree with Rachel on the crop from the right. To bad that just a little tad is missing.

Overall a great action image for sure.

Have a great evening

Ciao Anette

[Eric Dienesch]

the scene is very impressive for me.. the female lion looks more than angry.
i share the technical thoughts form the other comments

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Morkel great action and one can see the message send out by her .
Love the KTP look & feel in this image , nice tones and lovely colors .
I agree with you that the chopped off lioness is not ideal , i just try to blend that out , then it does look very cool

Nice work , Morkel

TFS Andreas

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi Mork, great display of aggression here with superb interaction and details. The expression is priceless. TFS.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks for your thoughts, folks.
I am fine with where I cut it off on the RHS. If some of the tail were still in it would feel more awkward for me. I will check out a tighter crop though...